De Sinne-cunst van Adriaen van de Venne in theorie en praktijk

Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne (1589-1662) was a poet as well as a painter. In his eyes both art forms were closely related, a view that is clearly expressed in his Zeeusche Mey-clacht, ofte Schyn-kycker, a theoretical poem about art that was included in the 1623 anthology Zeeusche Nachtegael. In that learned ode of almost 400 lines he argued for the combination of painting and poetry in an art that would surpass all others, for which he coined the term Sinne-cunst (art of wit). Why, people may ask, was Sinne-cunst Raised so high above all other art? "Because, I say, the mind plays so prodigiously within it That nothing else is so blessed with meaning". Indications of what Van der Venne was aiming at with the combination of the two arts are also found in his books of poetry Tafereel van Sinne-mal (1623), Woudt van wonderlicke Sinne-Fabulen der Dieren (1632) and Sinne-Vonck op den Hollandtschen Turf (1634). According to him, the combination of Poesis and Pictura was based on the equivalence of these two sister arts, which can supplement and reinforce each other. However, he believed that the concept of Sinne-cunst also meant that the same principles applied to both poetry and painting, for both served as the bearers of wisdom and employed similar means to set the reader or viewer thinking. He discusses this at length in his Tafereel van de Belacchende Werelt of 1635, in which he explains the didactic and moralistic function of painting with the aid of some specific examples from his own oeuvre. Oddly enough, his views have attracted relatively little attention in the recent art-historical discussion about deeper meanings in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. After moving from Middelburg to The Hague around 1625, Van de Venne put his ideal of Sinnecunst into practice by including banderoles in many of his paintings, both grisaille and polychrome. The relationship between word and image can vary from one instance to the next. Sometimes the text is illustrated literally, as with the pendants "Het sijn stercke beenen die Weelde konne[n] dragen' (Strong are the legs that can bear luxury) (fig.10) and 't Sijn ellendige beenen die Armoe moete[n] draege[n]' (Miserable are the legs that must bear poverty)(fig.12). The powerfully built young man in Strong Legs is literally carrying a woman symbolizing luxury. The blind man in Miserable legs is destitute, and is literally and figuratively bowed down by poverty. In other cases, such as He Who Guesses Misses (The Blind Leading the Blind, fig.14) and Unknown is Unloved (The Journey to Emmaus, fig.17), one first has to identify the subject of the scene in order to make a meaningful connection with the inscription on the banderole. In addition to existing saying Van de Venne often used combinations of words that he thought up himself,such as Rich Poverty (fig.20), the meaning of which only becomes clear in combination with the image. He also liked short, pithy expressions like All'-arm!, (Alarm!, but also a play on words meaning 'All poor!') and Jammerlijck! (Lamentable!), with the exclamation marks giving the impression this is what the main figures (or the bystanders) are shouting out (figs.22,23 and 26). Word and image are interchangeable in many cases. The words or word combinations are often ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations, but it is not to say that all viewers would have spotted every conceivable association. The depth to which someone discovers layers of meaning depends largely on his or her linguistic skill and power of association. In other words, the text in the banderole is not an unambiguous explanation of the scene. It does, however, provide food for thought, with the depth of interpretation depending on the viewer's own contribution. By giving a voice to the dumb, i.e. silent, image, Van de Venne created scenes full of meaning that make an appeal to the viewer's intellect. In that respect there is a clear connection between his paintings with banderoles and the contemporary emblem literature, with which he was closely involved as an illustrator. One important difference, though, is the lack of explanatory legends (epigrams), which was an essential part of an emblem, so the painted image has to contain sufficient information to establish a meaningful connection with the text in the banderole. Van de Venne also realized that the scenes had to raise at least a smile, otherwise he would not be getting his message across. A wise lesson has to be packaged in humour, or 'Made silly for wisdom' (a close cousin of 'Teach through laughter'), as he himself put it in his Belacchende Werelt. This did not just involve clever word play in the banderoles but also visual jokes in the image. In order to make his scenes more recognizable Van de Venne often drew on popular pictorial traditions, such as the alchemist, or brawling peasants or beggars. Above all, he preferred prints after designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Bruegel's work was still topical in the seventeenth century, and he was widely held to be the founding father of the comic genre. However, Van de Venne did not follow Bruegel's models slavishly but adapted them in his own distinctive way (compare figs.14 and 15, 17 and 18, 20 and 21, 26 and 27). By paraphrasing certain details in such a way that their origins were still traceable he revealed his artistic source of inspiration to the connoisseur. The borrowings from Bruegel can consequently be regarded as deliberate attempts to vie with his great sixteenth-century predecesor. It is only logical to asume that he had a large print collection, or at least had access to one. In any event, the art of the print was a familiar medium to him through his work as a print designer and the experience he had built up while assisting his brother Jan in his publishing and printing house in Middelburg. Sixteenth-century prints would also have been an attractive source of inspiration because of the frequent combination of word and image and the marked emphasis on didactic and moralistic values, which he tried to impart in his own work. Van de Venne did not just apply the concept of Sinne-cunst to the actual combination of word and image, as expressed in the banderoles. It can be deduced from his writings that the merger of poetry and painting could equally well imply that literary principles like wit, ambiguity and concealment were applied in painting, and vice versa. That banderoles are not indispensable is clear from the fact that not one of the many paintings of The Battle for the Trousers bears an incription (figs. 5-7). That specific subject is cited in the Belacchende Werelt to demonstrate how scenes depcted in words or paint can be bearers of a deeper meaning. The message in this case was evidently so obvious that the contemporary viewer had no need of an explanatory proverb. However, such scenes 'without words' would also have satisfied the ideals of Sinne-cunst. No other seventeenth-century Dutch artista went to such lengths to combine painting and poetry as Adriaen van de Venne. In that respect he can be regarded as an exception. But that does not detract from the fact that his views on the didactic and moralistic functions of painting had a validity in his own day that extended way beyond the confines of his oeuvre.